ss in virtually all the white collar professions" (Naisbitt and Aburdene, 1989, p. 223). The authors define critical mass as a "30 to 50 percent" proportion of an organization's human resource component (Naisbitt and Aburdene, 1989, p. 217). In the field of professional nursing, such reasoning belabors the obvious. The proportion of women engaged in professional nursing would need to decrease substantially in order to fall to the level of the author's definition of critical mass. Women have traditionally occupied the primary leadership roles in professional nursing, and there is little reason to think that this situation will change in the near future. Once again, the authors' reasoning has little applicability for the nursing profession.
The authors caution, however, that women over the age of 30 years old may experience difficulties in the pursuit of leadership positions becaus
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